Alt Text: Starbucks Goes From Coffee Purveyor to Content Provider

Starbucks plans to make Wi-Fi free in all its coffee shops, which at this point is about as revolutionary as letting people use the restroom if they buy a scone first. Wi-Fi is increasingly becoming the sort of thing that people expect for free at cafes — like napkins, coffee stirrers and listening to people discuss where their relationships are going.

I’d love to play the standard “too hip for Starbucks” card, but the fact is that I’ll occasionally drive through one when I’m in a strange town and don’t want to brave the coffee at some intentionally misspelled place like Kountry Koffee or Coffee Dee-Lite.

Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I have my choice of places that can provide a better latte and a reasonably fat pipe, so free wireless isn’t enough to pull me into a Starbucks for an afternoon of reading MetaFilter while absorbing enough caffeine to kill lab mice.

But then I heard that Starbucks is upping the Wi-Fi ante by providing internet content that you can only get at its stores. It’s like Starbucks is turning into a series of little inverse Chinas, keeping out the rest of the world so that only Starbuckians have access to the coffee chain’s proprietary websites.

Presumably the Starbucks Wide Web will have some pretty killer content to compete with the regular web, which already has the two things people want most: naked ladies and games where you pretend to be a farmer. Here’s what I expect to see.

Pandora: Starbucks Edition

Starbucks is well-known for selling music alongside its liquid drugs — music that covers the entire sonic spectrum from smooth jazz to cool jazz. With this Starbucks-branded version of Pandora, you’ll be able to stream Starbucks’ particular flavor of musical entertainment directly to your laptop or smartphone, but only while at one of the coffee shops. Which is already playing the music over the sound system. So maybe not so big a deal.

Cranium Online

Another thing Starbucks is known for is selling Cranium, a board game targeted at people who realize that Monopoly sucks but don’t know that there are actual game stores that sell much better games. Now, while sipping coffee drinks at Starbucks, you can play a game of Cranium Online with strangers who presumably are somewhat less fond of sexual epithets than your average Halo 3 player. Not sure how you mold clay on a laptop, but I’m sure the minds behind the Frappuccino can figure it out.

Coffee Registry

Starbucks is famous for letting you order completely ridiculous drinks, so you can feel special as you fuel up before heading off to your standard gray cubicle. Now, if you come up with a drink nobody has ordered before, you can register it and collect royalties every time someone buys one. Just enter your drink in the Coffee Registry and convince people to start ordering a Venti Quad Half-Caf 3-Pump Strawberry Light-Ice Americano With Whip and you can become part of the Starbucks financial empire!

Starbucks Social Network

The Starbucks Social Network is kind of like Foursquare, except the only place you can check in is Starbucks. It’s also kind of like Twitter, except you can only post what you ordered. And it’s kind of like Facebook, except there’s only one thing to be a fan of, and you’re automatically a fan by joining. Remember that scene in Being John Malkovich where everyone just says “Malkovich” over and over? Substitute “Starbucks” for “Malkovich,” and you’ll get the general idea.

Coffee Plantationville

A game where you pretend you’re a farmer.

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Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to just order a plain black house coffee, unless he’s feeling delicate. You can follow his comedy offerings at Bad Gods.